Related: You might feel this if you did not have a good childhood and are now the parent who’s trying to fix things.

You will often have the voice of your own parents in your head telling you to react strongly emotionally to this or that. It’s entirely up to you whether you listen to it.

I sometimes hear a voice that sounds like my father’s mixed with my own which is deeply negative and controlling and uses shame as a weapon to seek compliance.

I choose to ignore this voice or argue with it rather than let it escape my head and affect my children.

It’s just a voice, it’s just an echo. It’s not me. It’s not who I am as a parent. I don’t identify with it, but it does live within me. It also dies with me.

This is the often unceremonious work of being the person who fixes things, who sets the world right.

Choosing to harm others in the same way you were harmed makes you the villain.

Choosing not to harm others in the way you were harmed makes you the hero.

We carry both of these archetypes within us.

It is only are choices which define us.